PAPER PRESENTATION:
Anna Blumenkranz presents the publication “Sketching Fast, Sketching Slow: Extending Sketchnoting Practices with E-Textiles” as part of the 2026 Textile Intersections conference taking place in London (GB) 16–18 September 2026, by the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London.
TEXTILE INTERSECTIONS is a multi-day conference, doctoral consortium, and exhibition organised by the Interdisciplinary Textiles Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society.
ABSTRACT:
As design researchers, we are often challenged to make sense of qualitative data without losing its nuances and situated character in the process. Sketchnoting is a widely used technique for transforming data into personal and memorable summaries. Typically practised with pen and paper, it involves a combination of drawings and text. However, what often remains underexplored is the formative role of materials in shaping sketchnoting practices, leaving open questions about the kinds of knowledge different materials enable to articulate. This paper explores e-textiles as a medium for sketchnoting, examining how their temporal, materially composite, interactive properties influence processes of data interpretation. Adopting a research-through-design approach, we conducted four interviews with e-textile practitioners and interpreted them in the form of embroidered, conductive, and sonic sketchnotes, resulting in an interactive e-textile tapestry. Reflecting on this process, we contribute insights on how the materiality of e-textiles shaped (1) the pace of our engagement with data, (2) how we attended to different kinds of data, (3) the cyclical encounters with data, and (4) the intentional and embodied engagement with data through sensory interaction. Synthesising these insights and drawing on textile thinking, we propose “slow sketchnoting” as a methodological expansion of sketchnoting practices. We argue that this approach supports a reflective, multidimensional, and embodied engagement with data, contributing to ongoing discussion of how knowledge production can be articulated in design research.